Blacklight was built using the Unreal engine, so other than the unique visual style you’ll find everything you’d expect. This means that a “jump” button is standard, as well as great lighting effects and solid network coding (only twice in three 20-minute sessions did I see anyone popping around).
On to the guns... Zombie Studios championed Blacklight’s weapon customization system, and it doesn’t disappoint. Each base gun model is a hybrid of today’s popular tools of death. Although not instantly recognizable, they each have a familiar quality to them. Playing any mode will grant you experience points, which unlock ranks, which in turn unlock outfits, camouflage, guns, and gun accessories. Customization works almost exactly like Army of Two: The 40th Day. Shunning the traditional manliness of shooter games, however, Blacklight features the ability to add one of over 100 dangling charm items to your main weapon. We learned during our first playthrough that each charm has a subtle effect on gameplay (such as faster healing, better accuracy, etc).
I’m sad to say that Blacklight: Tango Down left me wanting in the co-op department. We had a lot of fun playing with four players; I even thoroughly enjoyed spectating when I was waiting for a checkpoint to respawn at. But the game seriously nerfs any XP earned in Blackops, it has no cutscenes nor tutorial mode to give you a hint of what’s going on (I learned more from chatting for five minutes with experienced players than I had in two hours of solitary play time), and worst of all: there is no co-op matchmaking nor splitscreen.
Fifteen dollars is a bombastic price for a game that works really well and is pretty darn fun to play. I can’t complain about a lack of value. For my limited time, however, it’s a hard case justifying the outdated manual search for someone to play with...especially with only four extremely linear levels to play over and over again.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Team up with friends in a co-op mode that includes character progression and unlocks.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.